Friday, November 6, 2009

An interesting survey of business sentiment by Oliver Wyman/Zogby International.
Note: The survey was conducted with C-Level business executives in Saudi, UAE, and Qatar.

There are a variety of interesting findings:

The opening of Iran seen as extremely positive (a bit of a surprise) especially given the recent surge of media comment on the regional Iranian threat.

Conflict with Iran as the biggest negative (no surprise there)

Sentiment against maintenance of the US Dollar as the major world currency as well as realistic expectations for that happening (or in this case not happening)

Despite the UAE being seen as the most business friendly, Saudi businessmen are actually more positive about business prospects in their country and the economic stimulus policies of their government. UAE business views are decidedly and grimly downbeat.

The comment about consolidation of regional companies into global leaders is in my view applicable to a rather slim segment. (Page 5)